Summary of Bible references on the Rapture

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ZNP

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Wake up! Never before seen?
 

ZNP

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Zechariah 7 Either you are salt and light or else you too will be cast out.

1 In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, the month of Kislev. 2 The people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regem-Melek, together with their men, to entreat the Lord 3 by asking the priests of the house of the Lord Almighty and the prophets, “Should I mourn and fast in the fifth month, as I have done for so many years?” 4 Then the word of the Lord Almighty came to me: 5 “Ask all the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months for the past seventy years, was it really for me that you fasted? 6 And when you were eating and drinking, were you not just feasting for yourselves? 7 Are these not the words the Lord proclaimed through the earlier prophets when Jerusalem and its surrounding towns were at rest and prosperous, and the Negev and the western foothills were settled?’” 8 And the word of the Lord came again to Zechariah: 9 “This is what the Lord Almighty said: ‘Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. 10 Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. Do not plot evil against each other.’ 11 “But they refused to pay attention; stubbornly they turned their backs and covered their ears. 12 They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the Lord Almighty had sent by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. So the Lord Almighty was very angry. 13 “‘When I called, they did not listen; so when they called, I would not listen,’ says the Lord Almighty. 14 ‘I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations, where they were strangers. The land they left behind them was so desolate that no one traveled through it. This is how they made the pleasant land desolate.’”

This chapter is amazing, very hard to believe that it is real and yet it is so real. So the fast and feast they are talking about are for the burning of the temple by Nebuchadnezzar and the murder of Gedaliah. Neither of these was established by God in the Old Covenant, rather they were the customs of man. For example there is no “Easter” or “Christmas” in the New Testament, but rather they were instituted by man later on. No doubt there is the incarnation of Jesus and the death and resurrection of Jesus so surely there were some believers who kept their hearts on the Lord. But as we know most “Christians” who “celebrate” Christmas and Easter do so for themselves, and not unto the Lord. The Lord does not appear to be upset about that, this is not a chapter on “putting Christ back into Christmas”. No the point is very different and stunning really.

The Lord says you have no problem assigning these feasts and fasts for yourselves under the pretense that you are doing it unto the Lord. However, what the Prophets say, you simply ignore. “Administer true judgement”. Oh no, we can’t do that, we let the unbelievers handle that. The New Testament tells us that all things are under the feet of Jesus, that we have been commissioned by Him to preach the gospel which is that Jesus is Lord and He is bringing in His Kingdom and we are to bring all things into submission to this glorious gospel. We are told to be light and that you don’t put anything over that light. Yet Christians are saying that we leave that up to the government? What? That is the same attitude that led to the Jews going through the holocaust. You allow the government to cover the light, you allow multinational corporations to cover that light.

Show mercy and compassion to one another. We live in a country (the US, but this would also apply to every other nation) that bullies other nations and does not show mercy and compassion. But the US has given more foreign aid than any other country? We use our foreign aid to gain power, control and to manipulate other countries. We use foreign aid to prop up puppet governments and keep the country in poverty.

Do not oppress the widow or fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. What do these four all have in common? The widow lacks a husband, the fatherless needs a father, the foreigner doesn’t understand our customs and the poor lacks the resources. We use their need to take advantage of them. Our school system is not focused on raising up highly educated people, no that is only for those with the resources to pay for tutors or send their kids to private schools. Instead the politicians use the schools budget to pay off political debts. You could easily have a much more effective and helpful school system for less money than we spend if we put an end to the politicians manipulating that budget for their own benefit. The mortgage meltdown in 2008 was a perfect example of our taking advantage of widows, fatherless, foreigners and the poor. Those selling the mortgages took advantage of these people not understanding what a balloon mortgage is. They put them into houses where they would do all they could to pay the mortgage every month for sixty months, let’s say $2,000 a month for a total of $120,000 then the mortgage balloons to $4,000 a month, they can’t pay, the bank forecloses, takes the house back but gets to keep the $120,000.

Now these very same people who set up fasts and feasts for when the temple was burned and Gedaliah was murdered, the same ones who say we can’t do anything about the houses being robbed from widows, or the poor being sent to fight bogus wars to make the elite powerful, they want to know what to do about this? Are these not the dumbest people, I mean dumb as a rock.

Wake up! We are the light and the salt. If the salt has lost its saltiness it is good for nothing but to be cast out into the dung heap. That is why the temple was burned and Gedaliah was murdered. That is why God scattered the people and they wandered in a desolate land. The corruption and crime is in your face, either you respond as light and salt or else you too will be cast out.
 

ZNP

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Zechariah 8:1-13 Do you even know what it is to be blessed?

1 The word of the Lord Almighty came to me. 2 This is what the Lord Almighty says: “I am very jealous for Zion; I am burning with jealousy for her.” 3 This is what the Lord says: “I will return to Zion and dwell in Jerusalem. Then Jerusalem will be called the Faithful City, and the mountain of the Lord Almighty will be called the Holy Mountain.”

How about today, what is NYC, or Beijing, or London, or any other city called? We use terms like “superpower” and “vibrant” and modern, but are any of these called “the faithful city”? People want their cities to be economically vibrant, but being faithful is the best reputation for any business. Cuomo, the governor of NY required that contagious people with Covid be sent back to nursing homes where the most vulnerable were. In this way they maximized the death rate in the nursing homes and by so doing NY was able to reduce the money they had to pay for pensions and retirement. That is the definition of "unfaithful".

4 This is what the Lord Almighty says: “Once again men and women of ripe old age will sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each of them with cane in hand because of their age. 5 The city streets will be filled with boys and girls playing there.”

Here is a vision of a blessed city and we are so befuddled by the idolatry of the materialistic world that we have no idea what it is to be blessed. You have charlatans preaching that prosperity is to have gold chains, big cars and live in a mansion. They call that blessing. Hollywood and the media markets “blessing” in the same way, to be blessed is to have money and things. People live in gated communities, drive limos, and send their kids to private schools. I remember during the height of the AIDS epidemic you could go to the worst hit countries and it was as though an entire generation was missing. The entire age group it seemed had died from AIDS. When I taught in Taiwan I was stunned because about a third of my young adult students walked with canes. I asked why this was and they explained that they had been hit by cars while playing in the alleys. You can learn a lot about a city by simply walking the streets. Does this sound good today, for old people to sit in the streets and for young kids to play in the streets? No one wants to do that today because of cars, but get rid of the cars and you change everything. I grew up in the suburbs and we played in the streets all the time (streets that had very little traffic). The automobile has been a curse to cities. It isolates people and it robs the street from them. If your kids can play in the streets and your old people can sit out their watching the kids it is a safe city, a place that is very social where you get to meet your neighbors. Not only so but you obviously avoided wars for the last sixty years or so otherwise you would be missing a whole generation of men. Do you know what was a blessing to me? It was having my kids grandparents take care of them during the day. My two kids and their cousin would stay with them during the day. Their grandfather was in his eighties, he went to work every day and he played tennis everyday. He had escaped from China with the KMT when the communists took over and had to be nursed back to health in the hospital. The woman that nursed him back became his wife. At the end of the day all the kids would come to eat with them. My mother in law cooked dinner for us everyday. That was the best food I ever ate, healthy, fresh, with about twelve of us crammed around a small table. Everything was in good order, my kids grew up being respectful to their elders, and everyone was part of a family and a community. Everyone was healthy, we ate good, had good fellowship, and everyone had a function from the youngest to the oldest.

6 This is what the Lord Almighty says: “It may seem marvelous to the remnant of this people at that time, but will it seem marvelous to me?” declares the Lord Almighty. 7 This is what the Lord Almighty says: “I will save my people from the countries of the east and the west. 8 I will bring them back to live in Jerusalem; they will be my people, and I will be faithful and righteous to them as their God.”

We will be known as the faithful city because we will be expressing the faithful and righteous God.

9 This is what the Lord Almighty says: “Now hear these words, ‘Let your hands be strong so that the temple may be built.’ This is also what the prophets said who were present when the foundation was laid for the house of the Lord Almighty. 10 Before that time there were no wages for people or hire for animals. No one could go about their business safely because of their enemies, since I had turned everyone against their neighbor. 11 But now I will not deal with the remnant of this people as I did in the past,” declares the Lord Almighty.

Now let’s look at the contrast with the black background. Everyone is cheating everyone. High unemployment and it was hard to get by living like an animal much less like a man. And he had turned everyone against their neighbor. Wow! That is what we are seeing today. The BLM and ANTIFA riots with people talking about “burn it down” or “lynching white people” or “death to America”. The town I grew up in was the same place that Norman Rockwell grew up in (after he moved from NYC). So when you look at his paintings you get a very good impression of what it was like. How we have changed in just one generation. I could never have imagined back then what I am seeing today in 2021. You see people randomly shooting and killing people with guns and knives. You see videos of people being jumped in the streets as though they were a straggler being picked off by the wolves. You see these woke corporations and talking heads kow towing to thugs and hooligans. There is a mob mentality on twitter and for some bizarre reason they seem to rule corporate america.

12 “The seed will grow well, the vine will yield its fruit, the ground will produce its crops, and the heavens will drop their dew. I will give all these things as an inheritance to the remnant of this people. 13 Just as you, Judah and Israel, have been a curse among the nations, so I will save you, and you will be a blessing. Do not be afraid, but let your hands be strong.”

One thing I have seen and really appreciated is that those who were most attuned to the damaging rhetoric were those who had come from socialist countries. I went to a Stop the Steal rally in Washington DC and wanted to know why people were there. I found people who had come from Cuba or Venezuela or China or Vietnam and they said they had seen the same thing happen where they came from. Experiencing the curse is like getting sick with the flu. Once you get better you now have immunity to that virus. You come from a place where everyone is turned against their neighbor you will have immunity. You will know how important the Lord’s command to love your neighbor is. Take that away and heaven becomes hell. I heard a story once illustrating this point. He said that in hell it was like being at a great banquet feast but you can only reach the food with these very long forks and it is impossible to then bring that fork to your mouth. People became savage having all that right in front of their face and they couldn’t eat any of it. Heaven was very different, they still needed the very long forks to get the food and it was still impossible to bring that fork to your mouth, but in heaven people had learned to feed each other.
 

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15 Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth therewith? shall the saw magnify itself against him that wieldeth it? as if a rod should wield them that lift it up, or as if a staff should lift up him that is not wood. 16 Therefore will the Lord, Jehovah of hosts, send among his fat ones leanness; and under his glory there shall be kindled a burning like the burning of fire. 17 And the light of Israel will be for a fire, and his Holy One for a flame; and it will burn and devour his thorns and his briers in one day. 18 And he will consume the glory of his forest, and of his fruitful field, both soul and body: and it shall be as when a standard-bearer fainteth. 19 And the remnant of the trees of his forest shall be few, so that a child may write them.

 

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The calendar has been a huge controversy on all of this, so here is another look at what the Bible means by "the barley being in Abib" and other verses that explain the Bible's calendar.

To my understanding there are three valid calendars: Bible, Enoch and Gregorian. The Bible's calendar is for calculating the holy days of the Lord and is prophetic. The Enoch calendar is for the angels, think of them as the servants in a great house (Downton Abbey), they have their own timetable which is not exactly the same as the timetable for those upstairs. The wedding of the Lord will be a great event on both calendars but the time table for cooking the cake will be very different than the timetable for showing up to the ceremony. Then you have the Gregorian calendar, this is the world's calendar. So remember, God is sovereign over all, the church is composed of those in the world and Paul refers to it when he says that we will celebrate the Lord's table on "whatever day". To me it is like one of those old fashioned Nikon cameras before everything went digital. You had to focus so that all the different lenses would come into focus together.

 

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What is the Last Trump?

1Corinthians 15:52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

1Thessalonians 4:16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven, with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first;

1st thing we learn is that it is "the trump of God". The Old Testament is full of references for God's people to blow the trumpet, they do that on new moons, on sabbaths, on feast days and yes on "the feast of trumpets" but this trumpet is not any of those. This is not man blowing the trumpet, it is "the trump of God". The trumpet was used to call for an assembly, to warn of an enemy coming, to announce the coming king, to celebrate the wedding of the king, to celebrate the coronation of the king, in short it is what the Lord told us -- we are His witnesses. Our testimony is a trumpet blast. Not only so but the shofar is a rams horn, it reminds God of mercy. When Abraham was told to sacrifice his son God provided a ram instead. That was mercy. The first trump refers to one of those rams horns, the last trump to the other.

So then, what was the first Trump?

Exodus 19:16 And it came to pass on the third day, when it was morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of a trumpet exceeding loud; and all the people that were in the camp trembled. 17 And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet God; and they stood at the nether part of the mount. 18 And mount Sinai, the whole of it, smoked, because Jehovah descended upon it in fire; and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly. 19 And when the voice of the trumpet waxed louder and louder, Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice.

When God gave the law to the children of Israel it began with the first Trump of God. You can be sure that the sounding of the last trump will look like this. Thunders, lightnings, the mountain will smoke, etc. In this situation people were scared, no one is going to be able to blow a trumpet while this is going on, yet the Feast of Trumpets is when you blow the trumpet. We are the choir, God is the soloist. While He blows the trumpet we are silent. The same will be true of the last trump. Think of the Feast of Trumpets as the choir coming in on the chorus, God does the verse, then we all respond with the chorus. God raptures the church, judges the Great Babylon while we all shake and are silent, then when Feast of Trumpets comes we have regained our composure and can all join in on the chorus -- the king is coming, this is the day of the Lord, repent, seek His face, call on Him.


Is the 100th trump the last trump?

On the feast of trumpet they blow the trumpet 100 times, the 100th time is called the last trumpet. Is that the "Last Trump"? No. Only once before have we seen "the trump of God" it was when He gave the law. God blows the trumpet twice, once when He gave the law and once again at the end of the age and start of the Day of the Lord. Think of these 100 trumpet blasts as pieces to a puzzle, we are putting this puzzle together. The last trumpet on that day is when we have put the puzzle together. It is the glory of God to conceal a matter and the glory of kings to search a matter out.

Does the Feast of Trumpets depict the rapture?

No. The blowing of the trumpets is an alarm (depicts the start of the tribulation), it announces the coming of the king (that is the day of the Lord), it signifies that the doors of heaven have been opened (that refers to judgement that will be poured out on the Earth). The trumpet blasts are from people to remind God as He prepares to judge us to remember mercy (that is appropriate for those left behind after the rapture).

It announces the wedding of the Lord and just like the parable of the ten virgins this does refer to the rapture, but wait, there is a cry in the midnight hour that the Bridegroom cometh, they light their lamps and go out to meet Him. That is the rapture, that is not the wedding! That midnight cry is the last trump, it wakes the dead, they go out to meet Him, but then some realize they don't have oil and they have to go buy the oil and when they return the door to the wedding is closed. Look at the timeline -- midnight cry (last trump) --> dead are raised --> some are foolish and are told to go buy oil from those who sell (the two witnesses during the tribulation) --> when they return the door is already closed. From this we learn that the midnight cry precedes the wedding, the tribulation begins, the wedding begins, and those in the tribulation are locked out. So yes, the last Trump of God and the Feast of trumpets are very close together but they are not the same.

Finally, the Feast of Trumpets is a Memorial

Leviticus 23:24 Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, shall be a solemn rest unto you, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation.

Just like the rebuke from the Lord to the church in Sardis.

Revelation 3: 3 Remember therefore how thou hast received and didst hear; and keep it, and repent.

This is a word to those who are left behind.
 

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Common Sense

Does it make sense that a God of order, a God who is not the author of confusion, would have "the last trump" which closes out a period beginning from the time of Moses, would it make sense that the "last trump" would be on the first day of the year?
 

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Doors, Gates, and the door of the gate?

Perhaps the most compelling argument for Feast of Trumpets being the date of the rapture is Revelation 4, John is caught up to heaven after the church age, he hears a voice like a trumpet saying come up hither, and he sees a door opened in heaven. That sounds exactly like the rapture.

Meanwhile the Feast of Trumpets is known as the day the gates of heaven are opened.

Here is the issue, door and gate are two separate things. For example the Bible refers to "the door of the east gate of Jehovah’s house" Eze 10:19. There are many examples of this. If you look at the East gate of Jehovah's house, it is huge, big enough to drive your tanks through, big enough for the armies of Mordor to pour through. You open the gate to release your army. However, in the gate there is a door through which individuals can enter.

This is what Isaiah seems to say Isaiah 26:20 Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast.

We enter the doors before the indignation is released. The gates are open indicates the indignation is pouring out.

Consider the foolish virgins, they go to buy oil but when they return the Lord says the door is shut and outside there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Outside they will endure the indignation, but guess what, the gate is open if the indignation is pouring out and yet the door is shut. They are two different things. When the door is shut the gates are opened.

Matthew 23:13 But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye shut the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye enter not in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering in to enter.

You reap what you sow, they shut the door on others so they can expect to see the door shut in their face. That would indicate woe, and woe indicates the gates of heaven are open pouring out the Lord's wrath.
 

ZNP

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If Revelation 4 is talking about the rapture then Revelation 5 would be the Feast of Trumpets.

It takes place at the coronation -- this is when the book is given to the Lord.

It is the proclamation of the coming of the king

He opens the seven seals -- that is the opening of the gates for God to pour out His judgement.

This is the wedding -- it is when He purchased the people and made them a kingdom of priests.

This is when the Lord receives power and riches wisdom and might honor and glory and blessing
 

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Zechariah 8:14-17 These are the things that you are to do.

14 This is what the Lord Almighty says: “Just as I had determined to bring disaster on you and showed no pity when your ancestors angered me,” says the Lord Almighty, 15 “so now I have determined to do good again to Jerusalem and Judah. Do not be afraid. 16 These are the things you are to do: Speak the truth to each other, and render true and sound judgment in your courts; 17 do not plot evil against each other, and do not love to swear falsely. I hate all this,” declares the Lord.

Everyone makes it seem like there are so many different theories on what we should do that it is just impossible to know the best course. Universal healthcare or corporate healthcare? Border wall or no border wall? But they are missing the whole point, what you really need to do is speak truth to each other. Do you really want universal healthcare? OK, this is what it will really cost and this is what it will really be like. Pelosi makes a big stink over the wall costing $5 billion dollars and yet in the first 100 days of Biden’s presidency he spends $3 billion on undocumented aliens entering our Southern border and she says nothing. It all begins with speaking truth. The MeToo movement was up in arms about a woman making an unsubstantiated accusation against Kavanaugh. Many high profile senators were claiming that we need to believe all women. Then ten women come forward against Cuomo and they are silent. Not about something he did over twenty years ago in high school but about what he did as governor. All you hear from these same pompous liars is crickets. Three women came forward against Joe Biden, even Kamala Harris said she believed them right up until she was chosen as his running mate. First and foremost speak truth. Then you have to render true and sound judgement. The Chauvin trial was stunning. Prominent government officials threatening jurors publicly to make a guilty verdict. The jurors were so scared they found him guilty of three different kinds of murder all at the same time for the same murder! We know that some of the jurors lied to get on the jury. By any standard of justice this was a mistrial. They are taking people who are guilty of misdemeanor trespassing on January 6th and putting them into solitary confinement and allowing them to be beaten and abused in prison. George Floyd’s family is awarded millions of dollars in a settlement for his wrongful death and yet Ashli Babbit’s family cannot even know who it was that shot her or even ask questions. George Floyd had a criminal record and had committed several felonies at the time of his arrest, Ashli Babbit did not have a criminal record and at the time was guilty of trespassing, a misdemeanor. She did not have a weapon, nor was she threatening to harm anyone. Judge righteous judgement, that is not the same thing as mob rule. If you do those two things then it will go a long way to dealing with those who plot evil against one another. The US has had a number of evil plots, JFK assassination, 9/11, and the reason we went to war in Vietnam were all evil plots. War is very profitable for some, you can understand why they like war, it brings them huge government contracts. So we should not naively think that no one would intentionally provoke a war just because we don’t like war. We don’t like it because our kids go and die and we have to pay for the cost with our taxes. The rich elites who profit from war do not send their kids to fight and the money they make far outweighs the tax they pay. If you are going to deal with evil plots then you can’t be naive. The steel dossier was an evil plot and the great number of Americans who fell for it demonstrates how naive we are. Finally don’t swear falsely. We are discovering falsehoods everywhere. Joe Biden swore that his family would not have business dealings with the CCP, that was false. Kamala Harris swore that if we elected her she would put an end to the human rights abuses at our border, that was false. The FISA warrants on Trump’s campaign were gotten from those who swore falsely. The claims made about the Pandemic were falsehoods.
 

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Zechariah 8:18-23 The way to victory

18 The word of the Lord Almighty came to me. 19 This is what the Lord Almighty says: “The fasts of the fourth, fifth, seventh and tenth months will become joyful and glad occasions and happy festivals for Judah. Therefore love truth and peace.”

These fasts are due to Jerusalem being broken into, set on fire, Gedaliah murdered, and the siege of Jerusalem. Right now our cities are under attack, they are being set on fire, people are being murdered, and there is a siege on the US. There is a struggle throughout the world to have one world government headed up by the AntiChrist with his pandemic passport who will identify who is obedient to him and who isn’t. Right now if you are mourning for righteousness your grief will be turned to joy. The Lord promised that those who mourn would be comforted.

20 This is what the Lord Almighty says: “Many peoples and the inhabitants of many cities will yet come, 21 and the inhabitants of one city will go to another and say, ‘Let us go at once to entreat the Lord and seek the Lord Almighty. I myself am going.’ 22 And many peoples and powerful nations will come to Jerusalem to seek the Lord Almighty and to entreat him.” 23 This is what the Lord Almighty says: “In those days ten people from all languages and nations will take firm hold of one Jew by the hem of his robe and say, ‘Let us go with you, because we have heard that God is with you.’”

The world is watching, they have all been conquered by tyrants and totalitarian regimes. It will be the people of the Lord, those that love their neighbor and those that speak the truth that show the world the way to defeat these tyrants. The first thing to return will be prayer, following that there will be a testimony of those who are one with the Lord. Implied in all this is that they will be seeking the word of the Lord.
 

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Rumors of War

Matthew 24:6 You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. 7 Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are the beginning of birth pains.

I find this verse quite interesting, why would "rumors of wars" be a sign of the Lord's coming? I always used to think this was some kind of joke, wars, that is bad, but a rumor of a war? Well consider today, you have Washington DC surrounded by troops and barbed wire due to a "rumor of war". We had the biggest cyber attack on US soil, we had this recent cyber attack which shut down the pipeline, and there is evidence that the Pandemic might have been an act of war. It used to be we either were at war or we weren't but now the deep state, traitors, and people with their secret plots of evil have made "rumors of war" a major industry. I remember after 9/11 they would have threat level orange, or threat level red, and it was absurd. The way you manipulate people in a democracy is with fear. Is this pandemic real or a rumor? Regardless of what you thing the answer is you have to admit that the authorities are not being transparent and we are not getting straight, honest answers. After all how does the government manipulate the populace to hand over all power and authority to the central government, they give you scary rumors of imminent threats and wars.

Then look at what is next "famines and earthquakes". This translation has left out pestilences. Darby is an excellent translation and it says "and there shall be famines and pestilences, and earthquakes in divers places." The discrepancy is because the difference in spelling in the two words is very similar, hence some translators may have thought it was simply a repetition. But look at it, not "a famine" but "famines". Today I read the news that we have a shortage of chicken, not only so but there are many other things that the supply chain is having a hard time filling. Lumber has gone through the roof, we have shortages of gasoline, etc. I don't think that famine only refers to food, but rather shortages of any essential commodity. We even have a shortage of workers while at the same time having record unemployment. This is the real impact of the pandemic is that it has caused a disruption to the supply chain. It is very possible that the pandemic was an act of war (though that is just a rumor at the moment) and that the purpose was to disrupt the supply chain (for example shutting the pipeline down to cause gasoline shortage). This is how the Antichrist will seize power. But these in turn lead to "pestilences". Not one pandemic, but a plural number of diseases. This is one example of why I don't think we have "turned the corner on the pandemic". When they first shut down NYC they told us it would be for one month, that was fourteen months ago. There is a prophecy that says it will be like when someone dreams and in the dream they eat a big banquet feast but then wake up to discover they are still starving. All of these optimistic proclamations from politicians will be like these dreams. Besides, it is simply science. You have wars and famines for over a year, all the great slums of the world cannot shut down for that length of time nor can they "socially distance". These slums like those in Brazil, South Africa and India become breeding grounds for more virulent pestilences that will spread worldwide. I live near JFK airport and there is a constant stream of airplanes into and out of this country. I see videos of our border and there is a constant stream of immigrants into the country. They are rounded up and kept in super spreader pens until everyone has been exposed and then they are bused and flown all over the country. We are going to have multiple pestilences. Yes we have a vaccine, but all that will do is favor variants of these pestilences that it does not protect against. As a result those vaccines will be useless in a very short order, a theory that is being confirmed today in Israel. If we made one we can make another vaccine, right? Anyway I think we are just on the cusp of "pestilences". After that it says "earthquakes", we have had a 34% increase in earthquake activity this year. Strange how the "news" doesn't report that. So think how strange this is, we have a worldwide pandemic that shuts down the world's economy with countries mandating vaccine passports and quarantine camps and instituting martial law. Perhaps we have seen something similar to this in history but never on this scale. We are also seeing rumors of war as well as wars. Manipulating people with "rumors of war" is a relatively new phenomenon. True false flag events became a common tactic once we had democracies, but calling 50% of the US population "terrorists" and throwing people into solitary confinement who were only guilty of trespassing, that is altogether new for this country. Wars are from tyrants and sociopaths who don't care if your kids die to make them richer and more powerful. Rumors of war are how these tyrants will rule under the illusion of a democracy. Famines are another sign of mismanagement by human government. We see three kinds of governments: open totalitarian regimes, phony democracies, and third world inept regimes. Finally there is geologic evidence that this catastrophic end of the age event is coming and they are hiding it from us. We can see it in the increase in earthquakes, the dramatic rise in Schumann Resonance, the huge increase in reported meteor events, and people who have videotaped their cameras or telescopes spotting these objects.

This verse is a very wonderful picture that the whole world lies in the evil one and that he is a liar and a thief and a murderer.
 

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All things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation

2 Peter 3:4 and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for, from the day that the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.

So is this true? We have seen wars for the last 2,000 years. We have seen several pandemics during these two thousand years. We have seen famines and we have seen earthquakes in various places. Rumors of war appear to be a relatively new development as we have had democracies that need to manipulated by the rulers.

But, have we ever seen all of these things taking place at once all over the globe before? Was it ever like this before? Today a company in China is about to go bankrupt and the entire world's economy is shaken. That has never happened before.

What we are seeing for the first time is how interconnected the entire world is where something happens in one corner of the globe and the entire globe shakes the same day. We are also seeing things happen much faster, one after another. You get the sense that the world is speeding up and moving towards a climax. The question for this blog is can it continue like this for another year? Could the natural disasters continue to increase at an ever increasing rate, could the lockdowns, martial law, and quarantine camps continue to increase at an increasing rate, could the wars and rumors continue to increase? I don't think so. People seem to have had it, they realize people are lying and they are refusing to take it anymore. People realize they are being manipulated, that the elites are mocking them and we have come to a breaking point. I don't believe it can continue as it has been any longer.

Now many argue that "no one knows the day or the hour" of the rapture, but I'm not interested in when the rapture takes place. Right now I am wondering about the tribulation, the last seven years of the age, and as far as I can see that begins with the Feast of Trumpets. The Feast of Trumpets is October 8th and 9th of 2021. Post #1965 gives a wonderful explanation of the biblical calendar and how you can calculate that and how you know that the Torah calendar is off this year. My point is simple, if the Tribulation begins with the Feast of Trumpets I believe it must be in 2021, I cannot see how this can continue as it has been for another 12 months.
 

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Zechariah 9 -- The gospel and new wine skins

Zechariah shows us that the way of victory, the way we must go is the same way that the Lord went at the beginning of this age. Jesus is the author and perfector of our faith.

1 The burden of the word of Jehovah, in the land of Hadrach, and [on] Damascus shall it rest; (for Jehovah hath an eye upon men, and upon all the tribes of Israel 2 and also [on] Hamath [which] bordereth thereon; on Tyre and Zidon, though she be very wise. 3 And Tyre hath built herself a stronghold, and hath heaped up silver as the dust, and fine gold as the mire of the streets. 4 Behold, the Lord will take possession of her, and he will smite her power in the sea; and she shall be devoured with fire. 5 Ashkelon shall see [it], and fear; Gazah also, and she shall be greatly pained; Ekron also, for her expectation shall be put to shame: and the king shall perish from Gazah, and Ashkelon shall not be inhabited. 6 And a bastard shall dwell in Ashdod, and I will cut off the pride of the Philistines; 7 and I will take away his blood out of his mouth, and his abominations from between his teeth; but he that remaineth, he also shall belong to our God, and shall be as a leader in Judah, and Ekron as a Jebusite. 8 And I will encamp about my house because of the army, because of those that pass by and that return; and the exactor shall not pass through them any more: for now have I seen [it] with mine eyes.

It is very easy for us to become too focused on Israel and forget that God is the God of the whole earth. I did not grow up in Israel yet I saw and I heard what God of the Israelites had done.

9 Rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion; shout, daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, thy King cometh to thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly and rIding upon an ass, even upon a colt the foal of an ass. 10 And I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem; and the battle-bow shall be cut off. And he shall speak peace unto the nations; and his dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth.

So many of the prophecies in this chapter have been fulfilled with the Lord’s first coming. It is a prophecy of the Lord’s kingdom over the whole earth and of the gospel going out to the ends of the earth.

11 As for thee also, by the blood of thy covenant, I will send forth thy prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water. 12 Turn again to the stronghold, prisoners of hope! even to-day do I declare I will render double unto thee. 13 For I have bent Judah for me, I have filled the bow with Ephraim; and I will raise up thy sons, O Zion, against thy sons, O Greece, and make thee like the sword of a mighty man. 14 And Jehovah shall be seen over them, and his arrow shall go forth as the lightning; and the Lord Jehovah will blow the trumpet, and will march with whirlwinds of the south. 15 Jehovah of hosts will defend them; and they shall devour, and shall tread down the sling-stones; and they shall drink, [and] make a noise as from wine; and they shall be filled like a bowl, like the corners of the altar.

This is part of the gospel, it is part of the New Covenant, you can certainly read about this in Ephesians, Corinthians, Timothy, Peter, and Revelation. The Lord’s people are being turned into an army through the gospel. They are just and they are lowly, but they are also like a bow filled with arrows and they are like the sword of a mighty man. They shall devour and they shall tread down. We are seeing this army devour the criminals from this election fraud. In Maricopa county they released a letter detailing massive election fraud after only reviewing 20% of the ballots. Why did they release it now? Biden’s DOJ was going to shut it down. Now the entire world knows that Arizona’s results were a fraud, that those who were telling us it was the most secure election ever were lying, and if Biden’s DOJ tries to shut it down now it will be a confirmation that this fraud is nationwide and the election was phony. These people, the “deplorables” were lowly, but they had excellent investigators, they had thousands of honest people who walked according to their conscience regardless of the cost, and they were volunteers. No one paid them millions of dollars to do this investigation. Over 150 million people have seen the evidence of election fraud. Biden is now polling at less than 40% approval! An honest poll might find that 75% of Americans do not trust him and think he is a liar. That is huge, if they had uncovered election fraud on November 6th people would have thought it was Trump and that would have divided the nation. But over the last eight months as more and more is revealed about Biden and his administration people have been able to wake up to the fraud. 6% of those who voted for him said they wouldn’t had they known about the Hunter Biden scandal. How about those who are seeing the border crisis and voted to stop the “human rights abuses” at the border, no doubt they are regretting that vote now. What about those who thought that electing Biden would cause the riots and protests to stop? How about those who are alarmed at what is happening in Afghanistan, Israel, or Taiwan? How about the small business owners who are being destroyed by his policies, or those on Wall street seeing the inflation and realizing the world is going to abandon the US dollar for cryptocurrency? A recent poll found that 60% of small businesses that closed in the pandemic have not reopened. His first national address to the country got less than a third of the viewers that Trump’s first address did. All of these things help convince people that the claim that Biden got 11 million more votes than Obama is absurd.

Still others like Bill Maher and Nicki Minaj that were a mouthpiece for liberals have become repulsed at “cancel culture” and censorship. Many of our minorities have been solidly Democrat but they came from socialist regimes like Cuba and Venezuela. They are alarmed at what is happening and realize they saw the same thing in the countries they fled.

CNN’s ratings are dropping by 40 even 60% while Steve Bannon and Dan Bongino are seeing their ratings skyrocket. Companies that bowed to “cancel culture” saw their sales plummet. The NBA has been exposed as hypocrites condemning the US while bowing to the CCP.

Platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Youtube have tried to censor what people say. As a result they have lost millions of users and new platforms like Gab, Rumble, and FrankSpeech have risen up to replace them.

16 And Jehovah their God shall save them in that day as the flock of his people; for [they shall be as] the stones of a crown, lifted up upon his land.

This is a reference to the rapture at the end of the age.

17 For how great is his goodness, and how great is his beauty! Corn shall make the young men flourish, and new wine the maidens.

This is a reference to the word of God. At the end of the age there will be “new wine” just as the Lord’s ministry at the beginning of the age was “new wine”. Notice, you can’t put the new wine into old wine skins. The Lord shut down the church meetings prior to this, because this new wine would have burst the wine skins. The pastors are all kept in that pit without water, afraid to say anything that would threaten their tax exempt status. The new wine skins are in cyber space and are in rallies in the street.
 

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John 12:18 For this cause also the multitude went and met him, for that they heard that he had done this sign. 19 The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, Behold how ye prevail nothing; lo, the world is gone after him.

It is abundantly clear that in one year there will be a massive victory for this populous movement at the polls. The Congress will see a clean sweep, a third of the Senate will be up for reelection and that will give them a massive victory there as well. The populous movement is controlling the precincts, they are controlling the school boards, once they control congress and the senate then they will impeach Biden and Harris. How can they turn this around? You can't undo what happened in Afghanistan. You can't undo what you have done at the border. You can't undo the present collapse of the world's economy. They aren't falling for false flag events. The FBI is looking like fools. No one is paying any attention to CNN or MSNBC anymore. No one is buying the "white supremacists" argument, and the vaccine mandate is another cause for a rift. This populous movement includes Nicki Minaj and Bill Maher! You can't describe it is right wing Evangelical nut jobs. You can't describe it as rural white trash.

They can't wait until November 2022, they have to act now just like at the time of Jesus.
 

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Zechariah 10 -- At the time of the latter rain some will beseech the Lord and others will listen to sorcerers.

1 Ask of the Lord rain in the time of the latter or spring rain. It is the Lord Who makes lightnings which usher in the rain and give men showers, and grass to everyone in the field.

The Lord gives us a beautiful picture of what it will be like “in the time of the latter or spring rain”. Once again the spring harvest festival is the festival of the firstfruits. The Spring rain helps both the firstfruits ripen and the fall harvest sprout. The rapture is likened to the harvest, but prior to the harvest you will have this rain and at this time you will have God’s faithful people beseeching Him for this rain. The rain is a blessing that falls from heaven, it is a fresh word from God. What have we seen these last few years? Dana Coverstone’s dreams went viral and along with them many other rapture dreams. I have watched many of these and have noticed that for a great majority of them we are talking about new believers and believers who have recently repented, often as a result of these dreams. Then there are those who have focused on the signs in the heavens, a topic many Christians are completely unfamiliar with but which is also very relevant since we have recently seen quite a few of those signs that were prophesied. We also have those that help us understand the Hebrew and the Greek. There are those who are preaching the word both from the old and new testaments. The Lord has made this, the rain, at the latter time. Just like James said, if you receive the rain from heaven you should have something to show for it, the grass in the field.

2 For the teraphim (household idols) have spoken vanity (emptiness, falsity, and futility) and the diviners have seen a lie and the dreamers have told false dreams; they comfort in vain. Therefore the people go their way like sheep; they are afflicted and hurt because there is no shepherd.

At the same time that the Lord is sending blessing from heaven the world is getting their speaking from sorcerers. A modern sorcerer works for the pharmaceutical companies and in the bioengineering world. Fauci is the modern day sorcerer. Let’s consider what he has spoken carefully. When he was advising Trump he was the one saying not to worry about Covid 19 and he advised against shutting down traffic from Wuhan to the US. There were very knowledgeable scientists in both China and the US warning that this could become a pandemic as early as January and yet Fauci was with those ridiculuing and mocking them. He told everyone that they didn’t need masks and later said he said that knowing it was a lie because we were short of masks. Why were we short? Since Fauci had been advised of the potential threat of this pandemic as early as January, even though he disagreed, shouldn’t he have seen that the US was stocked with PPE just in case? When Trump said that HCQ could be used to treat Covid Fauci said that scientists had determined that it was not effective and even dangerous. That was a lie. Scientists had not determined any such thing and only now have we learned that it is the opposite, scientists have determined that HCQ is effective if used early. Fauci originally told us the shut down would be for a month and that was about 14 months ago. He has since mandated masks and yet studies have been done which show masks are not effective and actually increase the risk of respiratory illness. What we are seeing is the flock of sheep separating into two groups, one following the lord and the other following the sorcerers, the “household idols” that speak vanity on TV. The CDC has admitted there is no scientific reason why those who are vaccinated should wear a mask. However, the people on the TV speaking vanity are outraged. If you don’t have to wear a mask how would they know who is vaccinated and who isn’t? Think how idiotic that is. They tell you that you must get vaccinated to protect yourself from the virus. If you are vaccinated why would you care if someone else isn’t, aren’t you protected? The people listening to them are afflicted. Their kids have to stay home, businesses are shut, and there is evidence that the vaccine carries significant risks that they are unable to assess since the data on that is kept from them. They are like a flock of sheep without a shepherd being attacked and ravaged by the wolves. Every day their numbers dwindle and shrink more and more.